


Another Christmas with the Callaghans

by VallyLilly



Category: While You Were Sleeping (1995)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-22
Updated: 2013-12-22
Packaged: 2018-01-05 14:39:33
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,041
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1095153
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/VallyLilly/pseuds/VallyLilly





	Another Christmas with the Callaghans

**Author's Note:**

  * For [dimensionallyt](https://archiveofourown.org/users/dimensionallyt/gifts).



Lucy started to suspect that Christmas this year would be different, when she first meet the tree. In years past she would get a tree that she could easily drag home after her, when she left work and walked home. This year her husband … HER HUSBAND … had promised to take care of it, so she could stay home and learn for her exam, after all, it had been his idea as well, that she should go back to school. 

She left her school books open at the kitchen table when she heard Jack’s pick-up pull up in front of their home. She hurried out to him and the tree only in her socks, not carriny about getting her feet wet in the snow.

“It’s beautiful,3 she sais as she touched one of the branches, feeling the sting of a needle in her finger,

“I’m glad you like it,” Jack said, smiling as he saw the joy on her face. “You just need to help me get it inside. It’s a bit on the heavy side.”

So there was a little dragging of a tree after all, and Lucy’s favorite socks were wet for the rest of the day, but that was nothing compared to having the tree crash her landlords window. 

When they finally had the tree inside the living room Lucy was overjoyed to see it scrape the top of the ceiling. She had always wanted a tree that touched the ceiling, and for the first time in years, that was the chase. Jack had remembered, that little comment she must have made the year before, when they had dinner with his family.

***

“Singing?” Lucy asked in disbelief.

“Yes, singing;” answered Midge and Elsie as one. 

“In front of people?”

This time they nodded in unison, forcing Lucy to take a hearty gulp of wine.

“They do it every year the evening before Christmas Eve.”

“But I can’t join you. I don’t sing.” She looked down at her plate and started to shuffle around some of her mashed potatoes in embarrassment. 

“Now, that’s not true,” Jack interjected. “You do sing. I hear you do it every day.”

“Singing in the shower does not count.”

Jack only grinned back at her. “I didn’t say it was bad, because it isn’t, I just said, that you do sing.”

“And even if it was, it could be worse than the singing of that old bat, that’s in the bingo group,” Ox said between two bites of pot roast.

“Darling, you can’t speak like that of old Mrs. Jemmerson. She’s deaf.”

“That would explain why she doesn’t only sing out of tune, but also way too loud.” 

“Ox!” Midge said warningly, and this time she pointed her fork at him.  
“I’m only speaking the truth.”

“He’s right!” Mary mouthed at Lucy from across the table.

“Sometimes you should stay silent, if the truth shouldn’t be spoken out loud,” Elsie said.

Before they could argue any more if Mrs. Jemmerson really was a bad singer, or if Lucy should join the bingo group to go singing carols, they heard the front door open.

“You are late for family dinner,” Midge said, as Peter leaned down to kiss her on the cheek.

“Work is crazy,” he apologized.

“You always say that.” Ox said.

“It’s always true!”

"You promised you would take more time for us." 

Lucy was pretty sure that Midge knew that Peter would never change, but she kept to the advice, that sometimes the truth should better not be spoken out loud.

***

“Are you sure she will like the hat? Lucy asked Mary as they sat over hot chocolate after a long day of Christmas shopping.

“Of course grandma will like it.”

“Are you really, really sure it is the right color? I know it fits her green jacket, but what if she already has a hat to go with it? What if she would rather have a new handbag? Or a hat that fits with her orange jacket?”

Mary laughed. “Don’t worry so much, Lucy.”

“I just want to have a perfect present for Elsie. Well, for everybody,”

“Are you afraid to do Christmas wrong, if the presents aren’t perfect?” Mary asked with a hint of mischief.

"Actually, I am," Lucy said seriously. "Last year your family your family looked so happy, because everyone seemed to have picked the perfect present for each other. Even your gift for me was perfect. And I don't want to spoil the holiday for everybody just because I am unable to choose my presents just as carefully." Lucy could feel herself getting emotional, and tears pricking in the eyes.

Mary gripped her hand over the table and squeezed it.

“Firstly, it’s not my family, it is our family. You are a real member of it, you even were so last yea. No matter that you sometimes still seem afraid to say so out loud.”

“I’m afraid to jinx it” Lucy admitted.

Mary shook her head. “You won’t jinx it. It’s a fact. And secondly, we are not perfect with our gifts either. We just do our best to give something we know the other will enjoy, and we give it with joy and love, And the same was we revive our gifts too. therefore I know that grandma will love the hat, trust me."

Lucy nodded slowly. Deep down she knew that Mary was right, But sometimes, only sometimes she was afraid that one day soon it would all be just turn out to be a dream. And when she’d wake up it would turn out that it had been her that fell on the train tacks a year ago, that she had conjured jack and his family in her coma dream and that she would still be all alone. 

But for now she would continue to dream some more. She would be brave now and stop to worry about the presents.

Ox would get the expensive whiskey, Midge the flowery perfume and Elsie the hat; she also had a new leather briefcase for Peter, and new skates for Mary, as well as a pack of cigars for Saul.

And for Jack …well, he would get the meaning behind the little shoes she had for him.


End file.
